Thursday, December 06, 2018

Täällä Pohjantähden alla / Under the North Star (Centenary of the Cinema print 1995)

Täällä Pohjantähden alla / Under the North Star. Red Guard platoon leader Akseli Koskela (Aarno Sulkanen), to the right: Akusti Koskela (Paavo Pentikäinen), Oskari Kivivuori (Pekka Autiovuori) and Elias Kankaanpää (Kari Franck). – On the way to the front when it is already obvious that the cause is lost. The way is littered with corpses.

Based on the first two parts of Väinö Linna's novel trilogy, Under the North Star is one of the most popular Finnish films ever. It received more than a million viewers in its initial theatrical release and even bigger figures in many telecasts (in a country with less than a five million inhabitants at the time).

During the crazy year 1968 this Finnish national epic was mercilessly lambasted by native critics from all sides. The subject (the civil war 1918) was still too inflammatory for conservative and traditional viewers. The approach was perceived as too old-fashioned for new wave radicals.

The film was much better received in Sweden, as had also been the case with Linna's novels.

Seen from the global viewpoint of the many centenaries we have been commemorating in these years Under the North Star has a place of honour as one of the internationally outstanding works that deal with the turbulent period of revolutions and civil wars in 1917–1922.

The main achievement of the novel and the film in Finland was that they showed that the civil war was indigenous, born of our own internal social conflicts that had been brewing for decades. The official version, also in school history lessons, had been that the revolution was a foreign import.

Although Laine's film was seen as old-fashioned, its rapid vignette style and openly theatrical mode of address had in fact also affinities with modernism. Laine had developed this style in The Unknown Soldier (1955), and he had a knack of introducing a cast of dozens of instantly memorable characters.

Although Laine certainly was on the one hand an old-fashioned traditionalist I have compared aspects of his address with the epic theatre of Bertolt Brecht, and indeed, Laine was a pioneering director of the plays of Hella Wuolijoki who was a personal friend of Brecht and hosted him during his Finnish exile.

I have also compared Laine's approach with the multi-character studies of Preminger, Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, and others. Blatantly, Under the North Star proceeds with a "short cuts" method, squeezing decades of history and blending the saga of a vast cast of characters with the saga of our "birth of the nation".

The beginning of the film is a breathless series of historical tableaux from the national romantic awakening (1880s) to Russification (1899), the 1905 revolution, the first democratic parliament election in 1907, WWI, the March 1917 revolution, and Finnish independence right after the October 1917 revolution.

In the account of the 1918 civil war the film slows down to a more measured, majestic, and tragic pace. What has been shown before helps us understand why. Now we see how.

When violence is at sway innocents suffer. Tailor Halme has consistently promoted pacifism, but he is executed by the white guards for atrocities he tried to prevent. Injustice breeds injustice. But for his conviction Mr. Halme is ready to carry the ultimate responsibility although he is innocent of violence.

The cinematography and the art direction are plain and uncluttered, with no frills. The film was essentially financed by television (The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation), and there is an emphasis on close-ups and medium shots ideal for television. But there is also a generous share of epic historical crowd scenes.

All characters are memorable, and every face in the crowd scenes stands out, individual and full of life. The crowd in this epic is not a faceless mass. Such was Laine's talent.

Caricature is inevitable in such a vignette and tableau style. The talent of balancing the sublime with the ridiculous is another forte of Edvin Laine. This is a national tragedy, yet there is a sense of the ridiculous and absurd. The great addresses are solemn and dignified, but there is also always something that makes us smile without dimishing the gravity of the scene.

In this Laine has an affinity with John Ford. We can compare tailor Halme with Ford's preacher Casey, and Akseli Koskela with Tom Joad.

Among the greatest performances I would single out Kalevi Kahra as tailor Halme, Kauko Helovirta as Otto Kivivuori, Veikko Sinisalo as Anttoo Laurila, and Aarne Laine as the master of Töyry.

The female leads make more of their roles than is written into them. Even walk-on parts are memorable such as Elvi Saarnio as the Broom Lady; somehow I was thinking about the Log Lady.

From the beginning I was so moved that I was not able to take notes.

We screened the film in Academy and it looked great although a couple of times there was a glimpse of the boom mike at the top of the frame. (The film was shot with a dual aspect ratio option: full Academy frame for tv and masked 1,66:1 widescreen for the cinema release.)

The Centenary of the Cinema print has juicy, vivid colour, and it is complete, clean and spotless. A few times the definition of light is a bit off but not jarringly so.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON PEKKA TARKKA:BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON PEKKA TARKKA:

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